Low Employee Productivity? Measure Workplace Distractions

Workplace distractions are one of the biggest causes of low productivity. Organizations that are struggling to improve employee productivity should focus on identifying, measuring and mitigating workplace distractions.
As per the Career builder survey, employees cited the following distractions as productivity killers in their organization

Emails and Mobile Phone/Texting – Constant mobile beeps and email pop ups are always a distraction. There is always a temptation to leave everything and see what the message or email is all about. This constant temptation to look into texts and emails disrupts continuing work and affects productivity

Internet/Social Media – A recent survey done by HR services company Teamlease found that one of the biggest workplace distractions is social media leading to 13% loss of productivity in employees. It was also found that more than 32% of the time spent on social media was for personal reasons.

Co workers dropping by – This is a difficult one to avoid mostly because employees do not like to be rude to their colleagues. It is very easy to get distracted when coworkers drop by for a quick chat or to catch up. This makes it difficult to get back to the task at hand.

Meetings – Meetings are necessary and mostly productive, but when meetings happen for the sake of it, productivity suffers. Arranging meetings with employees who are probably not needed for the meeting wastes time and frustrates employees

Breaks – Every organization has its policies around allowed break times but when employees extend their break times more than required, it directly leads to loss of time and hence productivity.

Noisy Coworkers – a recent survey from Ask.com revealed that 63% of employees feel noisy colleagues are the number one distraction at work.

These distractions may not last for more than a few minutes but indulging in these distractions is an indication that these pastimes have become more interesting than work for them. Some of the consequences of workplace distractions are as follows:

Loss of productivity leading to loss in revenue

Compromised quality of work

Missed project deadlines and

Lack of Morale among the employees

As per the Basex survey, it has been found that workplace interruptions cost U.S. businesses an average of $650 billion dollars a year. This is a significant impact on the top line and employees should consciously work towards mitigating these distractions.

Each organization should devise policies and strategies to combat distractions but what is most important to note is to understand why it is happening and how much time is being lost in it. ProHance can help organizations get visibility into these distractions real time and enable managers to understand the reasons behind it to mitigate these distractions.